She had always thought that Rasmus was an odd name.

Granted, they did hail from the upper-class suburb of Rothbury, New York, a town filled with socialites who had nothing better to do than have eight children and give them stupid names like Darth and Portobello. Even so, she found it to be peculiar, so one day in the ninth grade decided to Google it.

Cora and Simon, not quite yet old enough to drive, were waiting to be picked up from school. He was distracted by something on his phone; she was stuck in a replay of the incident from biology class that day, where Rasmus had not-so-accidentally knocked her and Malia Thomas' dissected frog off the lab table. Frog guts had gone everywhere and she and Malia had to start over from scratch.

"Sorry, Coraline," he'd grinned at her as if he were totally innocent.

Still fuming, she pulled her phone out of her pocket and punched the name Rasmus into Google, hoping that it secretly had some sort of embarrassing meaning she could use against him the next time he called her by that stupid nickname. As it turned out, there was a saint named Erasmus. She frowned and shoved her phone back into her jacket, irked that he couldn't have been named something more ridiculous like Wolf.

It wasn't until much later, when they were at one of their college cast parties and she was watching him down beer like it was water, that it hit her how ironic the origin of his name was.

He was certainly no saint.

He hated this therapy shit.

The office was trying too hard to be zen, which in therapist talk meant that you were just going to breathe away your problems. There was a painting of a koi fish on the wall and a diffuser coughing out lavender oil that just made him want to sleep.

If anyone else had been the one to tell him that "maybe he should talk to someone," he would have replied that they could kindly go fuck themselves. But Ava thought that he had "issues" and he couldn't stand for her to be worrying about him, so here he was. In literal Hell. No – this was Purgatory, which was somehow worse. Hell at least would have been interesting.

Far back in the reaches of his mind, he wondered what people would think if they knew he was here. He imagined Cora with her stupid self-satisfied smirk and her picture-perfect life, always thinking she was so far above the rest of them. He hated her more than he hated the wannabe-hippie vibe this place had going on. He hated her more than the freaking koi fish.

He and Dr. Pierce were just staring at each other. Her gaze was – dare he say – piercing. As always, she looked remarkably unimpressed with him.

She closed her notebook, setting it aside leaning forward slightly in her seat. She looked like she was about to lecture him, which she most certainly was. "We've been doing this for months, Rasmus," she said as if he hadn't been aware of that. "And you're still behaving like a petulant child."

He raised his eyebrows, oddly satisfied. In spite of the vast array of creative insults he'd previously garnered from various people throughout his life, he wasn't sure he'd gotten that one. "Petulant? That's a new one. I'm flattered."

"You're not going to make me angry. That's not going to work on me."

The koi fish was staring into his soul. He tried to ignore it. "What's not going to work on you?"

She crossed her hands and proceeded to, in classic shrink fashion, refuse to directly answer his question and instead throw one back at him. "Have you ever considered that you might not actually want people to be angry with you all the time? That all you're really looking for is for someone to pay attention to you?"

That was the most profound thing she could come up with? "I have no reason to want people's attention."

"Of course you do."

He lounged back in his chair, which disappointingly wasn't nearly as comfortable as it looked. "Alright, then. If you know so much, what's my reason? Why do I want attention?"

"You were never given enough of it."

Rasmus resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he leaned back forward in his seat, matching her stance and meeting her eyes like she probably wanted him to. "Listen, lady. I've humored you this long because it's quite frankly a little bit entertaining. But look, it's not my fault if people don't like me. I'm not asking for it. Really, I'm not. Who in their right mind wants negative attention?"

He thought she almost smiled. Not because of what she was about to say, but because she'd rather him be irritated with her than give her nothing to work with at all.

"Someone who isn't used to any other kind."

Cora rolled out of bed ten minutes before Simon was due to show up at her door. She rubbed her bleary eyes, wishing he could occasionally be a little less punctual for her sake, but the boy had never been a day late to anything in his life. She knew better than to think he might start now.

And she was determined to look like she was functioning at least a little bit when he got there despite the ache in her bones from the past week of rehearsals. Now that Mondays were her only day off, it was about to get a lot harder than it already was for them to hang out. She missed the days when he was a two-and-a-half minute walk across campus away instead of a two-and-a-half hour drive, though she couldn't exactly blame him for not trailing behind her like a puppy to Manhattan when, unlike her, his career would be perfectly fine anywhere else.

He shouldn't even have been off work today, but he – bless him – took the whole day off just so that he could make it to his mom's birthday party tonight. He'd never strayed from being the golden child, the precious son who would deal with a whole herd of Karens for three hours straight just to make his mom happy. They were coming into town for a concert, some oldies group his parents had been obsessed with since before he was born.

He apparently drew the line at sitting in a fifteen-seater van with said Karens for five hours roundtrip, however, which was how he'd conjured up the excuse to come see her this morning. Not that Simon ever needed to give his family much of an excuse—Cora got the impression that his parents hadn't entirely given up hope that they'd marry and give them grandchildren one day.

She made a mental note never to mention to them how content she was to not have a boyfriend right now. That was a very new sensation for her, but she did so much goddamn kissing at work now that the thought of doing any more of it outside of the show was rapidly losing its appeal.

He didn't knock on the door—he was too polite to risk it waking Siena up. Instead, he texted her.

Earth to Corrie

Cora is typing...

coming

When she opened the door, Cora went straight for a hug. She wrapped her arms around that faded leather jacket he'd had for years but was still perfect for mild weather days like this and pressed her cheek against his shoulder, breathing in the scent that she'd come to associate with comfort – clean and vaguely minty. A lot had changed since they were children, but he was always home to her.

"Hi," she mumbled, fighting back a yawn.

He lightly patted her on the back. "You sound like you could use some coffee."

"I can always use some coffee."

She'd lived in the city for nearly four years now and still hadn't tired of Central Park. And today – with its blissful weather, the lighter-than-usual crowds, a cup of coffee in her hand, and her favorite person at her side – was the best sort of day to go wander around, though she did make a point to Simon that they had to go at as leisurely of a pace as she felt like since her days off were meant to be restful.

She hadn't exactly picked the least physically demanding job on the planet. Though it obviously wasn't nearly as strenuous on her voice as a musical would be, she and Rasmus' characters barely left the stage aside from intermission. She suspected she'd be nursing sore limbs and blistered feet for a few weeks while she adjusted to her new routine.

"Does it feel real yet?" Simon asked just as she was wondering if her character shoes might make her feet bleed.

"It's starting to. I'm not sure if I'm gonna be crying tears of joy or panic tomorrow," she admitted, taking a sip of her warm coffee. "Or both."

Tomorrow, they were finally going to the theater. First thing in the morning, she'd be shown her new dressing room and have a little bit of time to start settling in. Then, she'd get to see the full set for the first time.

"Well, my lunch break is at noon if you need to have a breakdown," he offered, and she laughed.

It would be far from the first time she'd call him in tears—they'd been practically stuck to each other's sides since they became neighbors as one-year-olds. Even though they lived in different cities now, he in Rothbury and her in New York, he still never felt very far from her. He was one of those people who made sure you knew he always had your back.

After having another sip of his americano, Simon softly cleared his throat. "So, are we gonna talk about it?"

"...About what?"

He grinned a sly grin that told her he was about to tease her. "That you've been making out with the devil all week?"

Cora groaned, lifting her free hand to her face. "Can we not?"

"We might as well get it out of the way before I come to the show and watch you guys get all up in each other's business."

"Fine," she huffed, wishing that he didn't have a fair point. "What do you want to talk about? He's about as charming as he's always been." Which was to say about as charming as a snake that had just slithered out of a toilet drain.

"But is it, you know..." Simon ventured carefully, eyeing her sideways. "Any good?"

She wrinkled her nose and debated smacking him on the arm. "If you're asking me if I could possibly enjoy kissing Rasmus, your answer is absolutely not."

"Okay, but is he better or worse than me?"

She did smack him now. "You know perfectly well that our problem was never that you're a bad kisser." It was that he was basically her brother.

Simon was plenty handsome. He was much more visually striking than she was, with frosty blonde hair and startlingly blue eyes. But the word that came to her mind when she looked at his face was sweet, and she could never manage to associate it with feelings that weren't platonic. It wasn't for lack of trying—that's how they ended up kissing in the first place. Unless she counted the boy she went on one "date" with in the seventh grade, Simon was her first boyfriend. And then they'd both realized how stupid of an idea that was.

"If you care so much about how Rasmus North kisses," she proposed with a little wave of her hand. "Why don't you just go kiss him yourself?"

It was Cora's turn to be smug and Simon's to look disgusted. "I'm sure he'd take very kindly to that."

"Oh, he wouldn't even be mad. He'd love the ego boost of someone throwing themselves at him."

They were both laughing a bit now, barely paying attention to which of the winding paths their feet were carrying them along. With Simon, it had never mattered where she was going, just that she was going there with him.

She shook her head through the last of her giggles. "Dear God, what have I gotten myself into?"

"Broadway," he smiled. "That's what you've gotten yourself into. Speaking of which, can we go see it?"

Cora frowned a little, both in confusion and at the fact that her coffee cup was nearly empty already. "See what?"

He lightly elbowed her, an encouraging nudge. "Come on, you really think I'm gonna come into town and not go look at your name plastered on all the posters outside the theater?"

Her stomach jumped—she'd been so busy throwing herself completely into rehearsals and thinking about their sets and costumes and her dressing room that she'd forgotten about the outside of the theater.

"Yeah, we can," she said, now blushing. "I haven't seen them, either."

In the future, when she tried to look back on this first visit to the theater that she'd make her Broadway debut in, it was a blur. Cora was just staring, trying to soak in what she was seeing and believe that it was actually real.

It was real. It was all real. This was really happening.

"Oh my God," she murmured. "Oh my God."

She didn't even know if it was more bizarre that her name was up there at all or that it was next to Rasmus'. Never had she once imagined that anyone would one day think of them as a pair, but that's what they were now. Broadway's newest pair of stars.

She felt Simon put his arm around her shoulder, pulling her back towards him for a hug. "I'm proud of you, Corrie. You made it."

She squeezed his hand.